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Mariners Church Weekend Messages
October 19 - Rejoice in Your Spouse NOT "Variety is the Spice of Life" - Eric Geiger
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Welcome to Mariners Church Weekend Message Podcast. Inspiring people to follow Jesus and fearlessly change the world. Discover your purpose and get connected by visiting MarinersChurch.org or click the link in the show notes.
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All right, I realize that I'm wearing the same shirt that I wore two years ago in that video. So, so awesome. Awesome. Great timing. If we haven't met, my name is Eric. I'm the senior pastor. I'm so glad that you are with us today. Evan Back is the head of sales for Ashley Madison. It is the website that would connect cheating spouses with one another for affairs. And someone asked Evan Back, what's your biggest competition? What is the biggest competition that Ashley Madison faces? And he said, our biggest competitor is the Bible. And he's right. The Bible gives a very different vision for life and sex than Ashley Madison was offering the world. Although I believe if you really will look at what the scripture teaches, that you'll walk away and say, though they are competing visions, there really is no competition because the vision that God offers us in the scripture is far superior to the vision that the world offers us in terms of sex. We are finishing our series, Proverbs for your love life. What I've been attempting to do over the last seven weeks is bring a proverb that the world has told you about sex or about love or marriage, and I have tried to just tear it apart and then bring you to what the word says. The world has told you this about love and about life, and it's often applied to sex. You have heard it said, variety is the spice of life. But I say to you, according to proverbs, that variety is not the ingredient for a great love life or a great sex life. No, you're gonna see in the book of Proverbs, the vision for sex is not variety at all. It's rejoice in the wife of your youth, rejoice in your spouse. This is gonna be the vision that you see. Now, that sounds archaic. The reality is the Christian sexual ethic to the world has always sounded. Are you serious? That sounds so old school, so old fashioned. And it's really though the sexual ethic of the early Christians under the Roman Empire that caused so much attention and changed the world. Augustine, an early church father, he said that of the typical Roman citizen, he was speaking of men in the Roman culture, that the typical ethic was the typical Roman was generous with sex and chaste with his money. And then the Christians came along and they were exactly the opposite. They were generous with their money and chaste with Their sex. And that grabbed attention from the world. Who are these people that are living so different now? Some. When you hear about the sexual ethic of the scripture, you think it's only about prohibitions. Things that the Bible says, don't do, don't do, don't do. And some of us. I put myself in this group. If you have been hurt by some of your sexual choices, as I have, or you have lots of pain and regret from sexual choices that you made in the past, as I have, then when you read prohibitions in the scripture, you actually don't view this as God trying to ruin you. You view this as God restoring you and caring for you, that he's the generous, gracious father and his way's always better. And so there are prohibitions in the scripture. But when you understand that God is a gracious father, these are great prohibitions. But there's not only prohibitions, there's also a grand vision for sex. And that's what we're going to see in Proverbs, chapter 5 today. The first 14 verses are going to be some prohibitions. And then there's going to be a grand vision for what sex should be like in your life. The illustration that the wisdom writer is going to use in the book of Proverbs is about two cisterns, or where do you go for satisfaction? And he's making an illustration. Water satisfies you physically, but. But where do you go for your sexual satisfaction? He's going to talk about different cisterns. And you want to get God's vision for sex. Now I totally understand the illustration because I grew up in the New Orleans area, and the water that we drank came from the Mississippi River. It was the Mississippi river water which people would always say, like, man, should we be drinking this? And we. It's just. It's all we had. It's what came out of our faucet. It's what came out of the faucet outside. So whenever we played ball in the street growing up, we didn't go inside to get water. We didn't have, like plastic water bottles or Stanley big flask. I mean, the only Stanley we had was a power drill in the garage. There was nothing like that back in the day. And so if you were thirsty, you would turn on the water hose. We would drink from the water hose because why go inside? The water inside is the same that's in the water hose. Until early elementary school in the New Orleans area, there was Kentwood water. All of a sudden these people showed up and they were. They had Kentwood water trucks that would drive throughout the New Orleans area. The marketing copy was this. We have refreshing. We're delivering refreshment throughout from the bayou to the Gulf, all over. And these were five gallon water bottles that you would put in this water machine. And my dad was like, I'm getting this. I care for my family. We're gonna drink the best water. And so we had a Kenwood water machine in the corner of the kitchen. Five gallon bottles of water. And my dad said, don't drink from the hose anymore. Don't drink from the faucet. This is what we drink from. We're drinking the best water. I've always been a bit cynical and always, like, I'm not sure if the message is true. So in third grade, I did my science. What's the best water to drink? This is me in third grade. That's your pastor right there. Third grade. And. Cause I wanted to see, is this true? Is this the message I'm hearing? Is this really what's best? And so I did a science experiment on the three different kinds of waters. There's Mississippi river water that wasn't filtrated. Then there's Mississippi river water that went through the filtration system. And then there's the Kentwood water. And my dad was correct. The Kentwood water marketing copy was right. According to the science. According to all the experiments I did, it didn't only taste better. Not only was it more clear, but. But it actually was better for you. And notice, in the science project, notice the ribbon on the side there. You know what that is? That green ribbon. You know what that is? Green ribbon. It's a participation ribbon, man. That's all it is. That's all it is, man. That's all it is. Participation. You know who won? You know who won? You? Not me. I got participation man. It's a green ribbon. The person who won had the blue ribbon. And it's some kid whose mommy took the Styrofoam and made planets, the nine planets. And she did the project for them and my dad and said, eric, you're gonna learn how to do the project yourself. I did the project myself. I got a participation ribbon. I should have won the thing because I helped people figure out what water to drink. But I'm not bitter. I've moved on. I've moved on from that moment. I was contributing to society, helping people figure out what to drink. Everyone's done the planets, whatever, whatever. But this is really what the wisdom writer is doing. But about what do you drink from sexually? And he's gonna give a warning, and he's gonna give a vision. The first 14 verses are the warning. And this is a dad speaking to his son. I have daughters, so I speak differently to my daughters. But I want you to see the warning. Verse 8. Keep your way far from her. Don't go near the door of her house. He's essentially saying, son, listen, if there's a woman who's gonna tempt you sexually, don't flirt and get as close as you can. Stay far away. He'd be saying, if the father is speaking to you, he'd say, listen, if there's someone at work that's flirting with you, whether. If you're a woman and a man's flirting with you. If you're a man and a woman's woman and a man's flirting with you, whatever's happening, stay far away. Stay far away. Don't get as close as you can. This is a father caring for his son. Some of you had a great dad who gave you this kind of counsel. Some of you did not have a great dad, but all of us have a perfect heavenly father. And the words that we're reading are, your heavenly father caring for you. So there's a warning, be careful the kind of person that you're pursuing. And then verse 11, if you don't, if you drink from the wrong well sexually, at the end of your life, you will lament when your physical body has been consumed. Some of us, I put myself in this group, know the pain of regret from sexual choices. This is what he's saying, son, listen, don't drink from the wrong well. You're going to be filled with regret. Don't. I'm begging you, son. He then verse 14 talks about how you're going to be embarrassed. You're going to ruin yourself in front of the whole community. You're going to say in verse 14, I'm on the verge of complete ruin before the entire community. So he's giving a warning, and I want to spend just a couple of moments giving you a warning before I get to the grand vision of what the world is offering you in terms of sex. The cistern that the world says drink from, the. The well that the world says drink from. That's not good for you. That you were told this will satisfy you, but it. It ruins you. The first is pornography. Pornography is essentially variety is the spice of life. Why would you only look at one person for the rest of your life when you can look at Many throw yourself in to pornography. And if the data is true, in terms of the percentage of people, specifically men, but women, being addicted to pornography is increasing as well, then across all of our congregations this weekend, as people are watching from all of our congregations, there are many of you who are addicted to pornography. Some of you, you have shared with your life group or with a friend. And I'm really proud of you for bringing your struggle into the light so that you can be cared for and shepherded. But for some of you, this is a secret that is deep within your soul that you have told no one about. And I am pleading with you to do whatever you can to get this out of your life because you think it's satisfying you and it's ruining you. And if you look at your own life, you know the research says it ruins you, it lowers your sense of self worth, it lowers your motivation for life, it increases your anxiousness, it increases your depression, it ruins you. This is not only the scripture that is saying this research is calling this out right now. Norman Doidge from Columbia University, he's a researcher. He writes pornography by offering an endless harem of sexual objects. So this is variety. Is the spice of life heifed or activates the appetitive system. Porn viewers develop new maps in their brains based on the photos and videos they see. Because it is a use it or lose it brain. When we develop a map area, we long to keep it activated. Just as our muscles become impatient for exercise, if we've been sitting all day, so too do our senses hunger to be stimulated. Do you understand what he's saying from a scientific perspective? Listen, I know we have a lot of teenagers in the service. I'm begging you. I know it's two clicks away from the phone that you have on the phone that you have. If you aren't cautious, you're going to build maps in your brain that are going to long to be stimulated. This threatens to ruin you. And some of you are addicted right now. You know those maps, those maps you have in your brain are constantly longing to be stimulated. So what do you do, what do you do when you're addicted to pornography? This is what Jesus said. If your arm causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out. He was not encouraging self mutilation, but what he was encouraging was sin is threatening to ruin you. So you have to destroy what is destroying you. Kill what is killing you. Get it out of your life however you need to do. Some of you addicted to Pornography on your smartphone. Get a dumb phone. I'm serious. You're like, I'm gonna look like an idiot. No, you're gonna look like a wise person. Put away your smartphone and get a phone that doesn't have Internet capability on it. Get a dumb phone. If there's a computer in your house that you constantly find yourself drawn to looking at pornography, move it from the room it currently is into a room that's out in the open. Do something. I'm begging you. Fight. Fight this. Fight it, fight it. It's ruining you. And I'm not saying it's easy. I've had like in this weekend, many young men come to me after and say, man, I am struggling. I said, dude, listen, you're probably gonna struggle your whole life. The thing is to fight, to not give up. You don't surrender to sin. You fight sin. Fight it. You're like, eric, you're jamming. I am. I'm so. I care for you. You know, this is coming from a pastor who loves you and is trying to help you fight against something that is destroying you. This is not good for you. And I care for you too much to not call it out. Cause it's bad for you. It's hurting everything about you. The second warning that I want to bring based on the wrong vision of sex that the world gives is hookup culture. And this has really been proliferate in the last several years. Three years ago, the New York Times released an article about Tinder, the dating app that is ubiquitous with with hookup culture. It was the 10 year anniversary of Tinder. Now you know in this teaching series that we're not against dating on the apps or online dating. I know many in our church have met that way. Then God uses technology and he oversees all tools. He can use technology. But this app in particular, Tinder. The reason New York Times referenced in this article is because it's associated with swiping to find a sexual hookup. And so Tinder asked or they asked what's happened. New York Times asked what has happened to people after 10 years of Tinder? 10 years. And they said, it's hurt, it's hurt us. It's been fruitless. It hasn't made people satisfied. It's only hurt people. It's lowered our mental health. It's not established deep connections. People have wasted years of their lives swiping, swiping for a sexual hookup that has never satisfied. It has never been enough. The world says to a young adult in your 20s, Listen, man, get as much sex and as many sexual encounters as you possibly can. Drink it up. And what the world is offering you is bad for you. Listen, I'm telling you, the world is lying to you. It's lying to you. And then the third I want to mention is very common in our culture is commitment with one's body without total commitment. What I mean is when you commit yourself sexually to a person or you ask someone to commit themselves sexually to you without total commitment. And God's design for sex is that there will be sexual intimacy, sexual union, sexual commitment after there has been union, legally, spiritually, emotionally, then there's physical union. To be very plain, God's vision for sex is that sex will happen within a marriage between a husband and wife after they have committed to be one with each other. That's God's grand vision for sex. Now listen, the world is going to say that's crazy and archaic. But do you really want to listen to what the world is saying? Is the world really telling you the truth about sex? So now let's look at God's grand vision. Proverbs 5, verse 15 through the rest of the chapter. Now, this is very explicit. The passage is, some of you are very intelligent. I almost said all of you, but that wouldn't have been true. But some of you are very intelligent and you'll pick up on there's innuendos in this text. It's a very explicit passage. It's why we said, hey, please have your kids in kids ministry. Because I'm gonna say some things, even post the passage, that are very explicit. I'm not trying to be shocking. I'm not trying to be the edgy pastor. I'm not trying to say things to just be provocative. But I don't want to be less shocking than the text. I want to let the text speak for itself. But so that I'm not tempted to go off script, I'm gonna read the passage. And then I wrote down the interpretation of the passage so I can read it to you. So this is God's word. And then I'll read what it means based on my study and views from scholars. Verse 15. This is God's word. Drink water from your own cistern, water flowing from your own well. Should your springs flow in the streets, streams in the public squares, they should be for you alone and not for you to share with strangers. Let your fountain be blessed and take pleasure in the wife of your youth. A loving deer, a graceful doe, let her breast always satisfy you. Be lost in her love forever. Why, my son, would you lose yourself with a forbidden woman or embrace a wayward woman? For a man's ways are before the Lord's eyes, and he considers all his paths. A wicked man's iniquities will trap him. He will become tangled in the ropes of his own sin. He will die because there is no discipline and be lost because of his great stupidity. This is God's word. Let me help you understand what it means. The wisdom writer uses the image of a cistern to describe the woman, and a fountain to describe the man. And the cistern and fountain language are not about the whole person, but the specific God given design of their bodies that facilitates sexual intimacy. Meaning the cistern and the fountain are the human anatomy of the woman and the man. The man is to enjoy the cistern of his wife, and she is to enjoy his fountain. And his fountain is blessed as he takes pleasure in his wife. The wisdom writer goes further, encouraging the man to let the breast of his wife always satisfy him, to be lost in his passion for his wife. The word for loss is the word intoxicating. That the pleasure, the sexual pleasure between the man and the woman is like being drunk. The sexual intimacy is so refreshing for the marriage, even therapeutic for each partner, that the worries of the day are numbed during the moments of sexual pleasure. This is the vision that God gives us in Proverbs 5. Now what has happened is the wisdom writer has contrasted the unsatisfaction of the sexual pursuits that the world offers you with the satisfaction, the ongoing satisfaction between a husband and a wife in a marriage that honors God. He's moved from warning in the first 14 verses to this grand vision. And this grand vision in Proverbs 5 is not merely a vision for procreation. There are passages in the Scripture that speak of sex in terms of this being the way that God brings children into the world, between a husband and a wife. But that's not the emphasis in this passage. The emphasis in this passage is sexual pleasure and sexual intimacy between the husband and the wife. There are several ingredients which I'm going to point out in this text. But you will not see an ingredient being variety. Variety is not one of the ingredients to have this great sex, this God designed and God given sexual intimacy between a husband and a wife. You will not find variety as one of the ingredients. But here are the three ingredients that you will find. And if you're married, this really applies to you and your spouse. I know half of our church is single. This applies to you as well. I Wanna give you a vision for what sex will be like within your marriage one day. Some of you didn't have the dad that gave you the talk. I've had lots of young adults tell me. I really embraced it. I've really embraced this. Like Eric. Eric, man. That was the sex talk my dad never gave me. And for several years, I was like. I thought I was like the older brother. I didn't think I was the dad. But I'm almost 50, so I've embraced being the dad. And if I could give you fatherly advice and fill that. That. That in your life, I'd be honored to do that. But you have a heavenly father who cares for you and wants to give you counsel that shepherds you and provides for you. So here's the vision for you, if you're single, about what sex and marriage can be. There's three ingredients here. And if you're married, these three ingredients apply to you today. Number one, belonging. In the passage, you see that the dad's talking to his son. It's very explicit. He speaks of the woman and her sister, and she belongs to the husband. And so you can read that and feel like the passage is only saying, the woman belongs to the man. But when you read the whole Bible, that's not what you see. You actually see that there's mutual belonging, which was shocking in the early days of Christianity because the Roman Empire viewed women as property. And the apostle Paul wrote and said, no, no, women. You're not property. You belong to your husband, but your husband also belongs to you. This was shocking in the early days of the Roman Empire. In fact, historians say this is one of the reasons many prominent Roman women came to faith in Christ, because they were tired of being viewed as property in the Roman Empire. And Christians held them up and treasured them and valued them. You're gonna see this in the passage, 1st Corinthians 7, verse 4 and 5. The apostle says, paul says, a wife does not have the right over her own body, but her husband does. So a lot of women in the Roman Empire said, yeah, we've heard that. But Paul continues, no, in the same way, a husband does not have the right over his own body, but his wife does. There was this mutual belonging that when a couple is married, that the woman's body belongs to the husband and the husband's body belongs to the woman. And they are not to deprive one another, that there's this mutual, shared belonging. The reason that sex is so important within a marriage is sex is a continual Restatement of the wedding vows. I want you to think about this, married couples, when you engage in sexual intimacy, you are restating your wedding vows to one another. You are saying, I am bare before you and I'm fully loved by you. You are bare before me and I love you fully with each other. We are both fully known and fully loved, and we belong to one. We are committed to one another till death do us part. Sexual intimacy in a marriage, the reason it's important and beautiful is it's a restatement of the wedding vows. Jonathan Grant, in his insightful book Divine Sex, he challenges you, the reader, to think not only the question, what am I doing with sex? But a deeper question, who am I becoming because of the sex I'm having? The world's vision for sex. The world's vision is not making people more selfless and more pure. It is making people more selfish and more perverted. God's vision for sex is selfless and pure. And this. This married couple constantly restating their vows to one another. Now, I just want to be honest with a question I'm receiving during this teaching series, specifically from young adult guys who will come to me after a service on the weekend or after our Thursday night at Mariner service, and a guy will say, hey, man, I. I'm hearing everything you're saying. I have a girlfriend and, you know, I'm going to marry her. Either I have the ring or I don't have the ring yet. I just want to know, is it cool? I mean, I think before we're married, in our hearts, we're married in our hearts, essentially. Like, is it okay that we are sexually engaged and sexually intimate? We're not yet married. Is it okay? And if you've asked that and you know, this is how I've responded, I've put my hand on your shoulder and I've said, hey, man, listen, the fact that you're asking, I'm so proud of you. I am. You may be surprised by my answer. It may not be what you want to hear, but the fact that you're even asking says that God's doing something awesome in your life right now. He is, man. I'm proud of you for asking. It means that you want to do that. You're considering doing what is honoring to God. So the fact that you're even asking the question I think is awesome. Let me give you. Instead of just answering directly, let me give you a big vision. So here's the big vision. You love her. You're gonna marry her. One Day. What if, what if you prove to her and to yourself that you are so self controlled that you're only gonna have sex within the beautiful confines of your mar. You are never going to step outside of the covenant for sexual satisfaction. So you're not yet in the covenant because you're not yet married. What if you right now proved the level of self control you have so that you would not engage sexually with her until you're married? So that for the rest of your lives you could know between each other that you are reserving sex in the bonds of your marriage? What if you embrace that? And even if you are, if you, if you've already not done that, you can start now. What if you would prove to each other that you're going to have the fruit of self control in your life and that you're going to know before God that we're never stepping outside of our marriage for sexual satisfaction? That the sexual satisfaction placed for us is only going to be in the covenant of our marriage. The guy says, man, wow, is that how it was for you and Kay? I said, man, if you've been around here, you know, you know my story and you know that I had made an absolute mess of my life. And I just want to pause for a moment. This is the illustration that the wisdom writer is using. But I fear as I prepared this sermon that some of you would see this and think, this is who you are. That's not what the illustration is or the text is. This is the world's author for you. But this, if you've believed in Jesus, this is not who you are. I know why you could feel that way, because I felt that way. And I want to remind you, if you have believed in Jesus, that he has wiped away all of your stains, removed all of your sin and cast him as far as the east is from the west. You are not impure before your heavenly Father. He has purified you and made you his own. You are brand new and fully forgiven. You are cleansed by Him. But back to the guy asking the question, so you know my story. I met Jesus. And after I met Jesus, everything changed for me, including my sexual ethic. Eighteen months after becoming a Christian, I met Kay at college. We became friends for a season. Then I started to pursue her. Then we started to date. Early in our dating we had conversations about our sexual boundaries. And we concluded that we were not going to have sex until we were married. If we were going to marry. And all of our engagement time, we never. One time, we only have had Sex. My wife and I have only had sex within the bounds of our marriage, which for us, the rest of our married life. We know that the only place that we have gone to for sexual pleasure has been within our marriage. The guy will say, dude, was that hard, brah? Yes. Why you think I had a short engagement, dude? And you can have a short engagement too. We'll get you married in the chapel. Come on, man, let's do this thing. I say this not to heap guilt and shame on anyone, but to give you a vision for a couple that has decided that the only place they're going to go for their sexual satisfaction is within the marriage between one another, where they belong to one another. Number one belonging. Number two is exclusivity. That the only place you go for sexual satisfaction is within the confine of your marriage, the beautiful marriage that God has given you. Verse 20. The wisdom writer says, why, my son, would you lose yourself with a forbidden woman? Some translations have strange woman. Here's what the wisdom writer is saying to the son. Listen, your marriage, the environment is so sacred. Don't bring something foreign, something strange into the environment to mess it up. I know who I pastor. I know. I know you. I know many of you make decisions all week in your business based on the framework of risk and reward. If there's a great reward and a low risk, you move. If there's a great reward and a great risk, you. You wrestle. If there's a great risk and a low reward, you always walk away. Can you just think for a moment about the risk and reward of stepping out of your marriage for sexual satisfaction? I know you hear messages about it. You hear messages about it. Some of you have been encouraged from a friend to open your marriage. Some of you have had friends say, and you sleep on the side. You can get something on the side. Think for a moment. Just let me reason with you for a moment. Let me beg you to think for a moment on the reward and the risk. What reward do you really want? When I ask somebody, what reward are you looking for? It's typically, I'm not being pursued in my marriage. I want to be pursued. Or the frequency of sex isn't what I want. I want more frequency of sex or I just want to feel alive. I'm so. It's so bold. I'm so bored right now. That's the reward that you tell yourself you want. So you have the play it out. You have the sexual encounter. Then what? You have the sexual encounter. What's next? As you really think about the reward. You will find that the reward that the world is offering you isn't much of reward at all and that the risk is really high. Can you think about the risk for a moment? One day you're gonna have to sit down with your kids and tell them what you've done. One day you're gonna have to call your in laws. One day you're gonna watch your marriage deteriorate. Please evaluate the risk and the reward from all of the messages you hear from the world that are ruining you when it comes to great sex. Walt and Barb Larimore, they are two psychologists. They wrote this book together. His Brain, Her Brain. And they concluded based that the people who have the best sex in America are those who are married, not those who are single or cohabitating, that married couples have better sex. They then continued their research and found that of all the married couples who have sex, that Christian married couples have better sex than non Christian married couples. And then they concluded that Christian couples who go to church together have better sex than Christian couples who don't go to church. And non Christian couples, that Christian couples who come to the 11:30 at Mariners Church have the best sex. There you go, exclusivity number three, commitment. My man said, hallelujah, man. I'm proud of you, dude. There you go, commitment. All right. This one is so different than what you hear from the world. The world tells you you can't control your urges. You can't help who you're attracted to. You can't help it. Just let it run you. Not at all what the proverbs say. The wisdom writer says, let her breast always satisfy you. Let your fountain be blessed and take pleasure in the wife of your youth. The wisdom writer says, you can choose where you are satisfied. The world says you can't help your urges. The scripture says, no, that's not true. If you will set your attention on Jesus and your affection on him, and he forms your character and you actually start to value what he values and treasure what he treasures and delight in what he delights in. You can change what you are attracted to and what you long for if you seek after him, he changes your affections. And in this passage you were seeing the wisdom writer say to the young man, you can choose that you're going to only have satisfaction in the wife of your youth, meaning the the one you first committed to for your whole life. She's going to be the one you're committed to and she's going to be the one that you go to for Your sexual satisfaction. You're committed only to her. And so realize, listen. When the world tells you you can't help who you're attracted to, you can't help your urges. Understand? The world is speaking to you as if you're a beast. As if all you are is an animal with no faculties and no volition. You are not an animal. You are an image bearer of God. And if you have believed in Jesus, the spirit of the living God has moved into your life. And the same spirit that conquered Jesus from the dead now lives within you. You don't have to be ruled by your urges and passions because Jesus lives within you. You can rule over your urges and passions by the power of Jesus, the resurrected king, who is now your king. You can rule over your desires, you can rule over your passions. And so you are committed to your spouse. That that's where you go for your satisfaction physically, sexually. George Shaw had a quip about marriage and love. He was actually speaking negatively about marriage and love. And he said all marriage is, all love is, is a man greatly overestimating the value of a woman. What he was saying was, hey, men, all women are essentially the same. And so if you love someone, it's really foolish. Cause you're just grossly estimating you're overvaluing the value of this one person. He meant it to critique love and marriage. I actually think it's a beautiful statement because it really is what marriage is. Because there really isn't that much difference between us guys and not much difference between all the women. I mean, there's a difference between men and women, but there's not much difference between men and men and women and women. We're all kind of a the same. And what marriage is, is you overestimating the value of your spouse that you are saying of your spouse. I treasure you dramatically above all else, all everyone else. I honor you above everyone else that men listen. The woman you committed to rejoice in, the wife of your youth that you have decided compared to every other woman in the world. I highly esteem you and value you and treasure you and pursue you. And women, this is what you say of your husband compared to all the men in the world. I estimate your value to be significantly greater. And I honor you and treasure you and respect you. This is commitment to your spouse. And this is the ingredient of a great intimate, beautiful, glorious, fulfilling. This is the water you want to drink, sex life you want belonging, exclusivity and commitment. You don't want to drink from what the world is offering you to drink from. Jesus, when he entered this world, found a woman at a well one day, a sistren, and he said to her in the middle of the day, the reason she was there in the middle of the day is because she was embarrassed of her sexual past. She was there in the middle of the day when it's hot. Everyone else would go early in the morning. She didn't want to go early in the morning. She didn't want to see anybody. Jesus finds her. And Jesus finds you right now. You're embarrassed. You're filled with regret. Please hear me. Jesus finds you. He wants you, to forgive you, to care for you. Jesus says to her, if you would have the water I offer, you would never thirst again. Here's what Jesus is saying. You have tried to be satisfied in so many relationships and in so many ways, and it's never been enough. The water I have for you will really quench. This is true for all of us. Single, dating, married. I want to end our teaching series reminding you that the relationship that ultimately quenches you is the relationship that you have with Jesus. And he's the one who entered this world here to forgive you of everything and make you his own. And to remind us of what Jesus has done to rescue us, we're gonna take communion together. When you came in today, you were handed a communion cup. If you'll go ahead and peel the top layer, you'll get to the bread. And the bottom layer, you'll get to the cup. Jesus, I pray right now that you'll overwhelm us with a sense of your presence as we remember your death for us on the cross, as we remember your great sacrifice, will you do a gracious work in our hearts? Amen. If you'll grab the bread and hold it for a moment, I want you to look at the bread and I want you to be reminded that on the cross, Jesus absorbed all of your sin in his flesh. So you look at the bread and you can remind yourself, you can preach the gospel to yourself. Right now, I don't have sin on me anymore. It was all placed on him. Do you remember that when Jesus went to the cross six hours on a Friday, his final words from the cross. It wasn't his final words. He's alive now, but his final words from the cross, where it is finished. He was declaring that you don't have to sacrifice something to get his attention to earn his love, that he's giving you his love by paying in full all of your sins. So the. The. The sexual sin that you're. That you what you're so mad at yourself for. Look at the bread. It's not on you any longer. It's on him. He paid for it in full. It is finished. It is finished. I don't want you walking out of church today carrying this guilt and regret from your past. If you are, you're carrying a mirage because Jesus carried your sin with him to the cross as he carried his own cross. Gone. Your sin is gone. It's been placed in the flesh of Jesus. Jesus said, this is my body. Take and eat. Jesus then said, this is the cup My forgiveness poured out for your sin. Take and drink. Communion is a really sacred meal because we're remembering the death of Jesus on our behalf. Jesus had 12 disciples, as you know. One of the disciples betrayed Jesus. His name was Judas Iscariot. He traded Jesus in for 30 pieces of silver trying to spark a revolution. Jesus actually kicked Judas out of the meal. Judas did not take communion. After they took communion, the disciples went to the Mount of Olives and they sang. Well, 11 of the disciples sang. One of them didn't sing. Judas didn't sing. Judas didn't sing because he wasn't changed by Jesus. Judas has spent the last 2,000 years in hell. He knew all about Jesus, but he didn't know Jesus. I want you to sing. I don't want you to be like Judas. We're gonna sing. Which is what the early disciples did after they took communion. Listen, some of you have left after we take communion, and you haven't stayed and sung. And you didn't know. But now you're going to know because I'm going to tell you. I used to. I always. Every time I see it, I'm like, dang. They don't know what they're doing. They're being like Judas right now. Like, right now, they're being like Judas. Oh, my gosh. Some of you love to watch football during this time of the year. And most of the people love football at our church. Come to the 8:30, and then they binge football all day. So maybe not as much at the 11:30, but sometimes an announcer will, like, draw a play up after it happened and say, and I don't know. I'm not a. I. I don't play football professionally. I stopped playing in ninth grade. So I don't know. But then I know because he drew up this play. Oh, dang. Wow. That's. I didn't realize that's what you do in a cover two. I didn't know, but then I know. And so now you know that the disciples, after they took communion, they sang. I want you to sing every time we take communion because your heart is filled with gratitude for what your Savior has done. Only one disciple didn't sing. His name was Judas. Don't be like Judas. Sing and celebrate the grace of your Savior, Jesus. Let's stand and let's worship him. All right, extend your hands, please, and let me pray a prayer of blessing over you as we go. Jesus, I pray you'd bless your sons and daughters this week, that you would remind them that you are gentle and approachable and that you love them. Cause your face to shine on them. I pray they will experience your mercy and your joy this new week. In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Amen. Go in peace. Have a great week.
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Thanks for tuning in to the Mariners Weekend Message Podcast to support the ministry of Mariners Church. You can click the link in the Show Notes or download the Mariners App at your favorite app store. If you've been navigating God's wisdom with us through this year's annual read and would like to hear personal reflections from pastors in your community, check out the Gospel Every Day podcast. Imagine feeding your heart, mind and soul with the kind of practical wisdom that will change your life. If you haven't picked up the annual read yet, visit MarinersChurch.org or download the Mariners app for more information on where to find it.
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Sam.